Good morning and welcome
to the Panhandle of Oklahoma. I am going to take a break from James
for the Christmas season, but don't worry and don't leave we'll be
back to James in January. I hope y'all find this as interesting as I
did when I was working on it. I told the folks at church that the
story of Christ Jesus really starts way before the manger. The story
of the coming Messiah, Redeemer, Saviour, began back in the beginning
of history. So lets walk through the Old Testament and look at the
coming Messih.
Prophecy and the birth of
Christ Jesus, they go hand in hand. This morning we are going to take
a trip through the Old Testament and see how from the very beginning
the coming of the Messiah, Christ Jesus was foretold.
The
rule on staying alive as a financial forecaster is to give them a
number or give them a date, but never give them both at once.
- Jane Bryant Quinn.
Dr.
George Sweeting once estimated that "more than a fourth of the
Bible is predictive prophecy...Both the Old and New Testaments are
full of promises about the return of Jesus Christ. Over 1800
references appear in the O.T., and seventeen O.T. books give
prominence to this theme. Of the 260 chapters in the N.T., there are
more than 300 references to the Lord's return--one out of every 30
verses. Twenty-three of the 27 N.T. books refer to this great
event...For every prophecy on the first coming of Christ, there are 8
on Christ's second coming." -
Today in the Word, MBI, December, 1989, p.
40.
The Old Testament contains
over 300 references to the Messiah. And all of them were filled in
Christ Jesus' first coming. Why did God give us these prophecies? So
that we would know a Messiah was coming, and so that we would know
who the true Messiah is. This is why God told us before hand all that
was to happen to mark the coming and the mission of the One True
Messiah. “Therefore I declared them to
you long ago, Before they took place I proclaimed them to you, So
that you would not say, "My idol has done them, And my graven
image and my molten image have commanded them.”
(Isaiah 48:5).
To fulfill just 8
prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah is a 10¹⁷
chance. To
fulfill 48 of the prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah is
a 10¹⁵⁷
chance. To fulfill all 300 prophecies, well the
odds against one person fulfilling that many prophecies would be
beyond all mathematical possibility. It could never happen, no matter
how much time was allotted. Although by one mathematician’s
estimate of those impossible odds is “one in a trillion¹² chance.
Yet Bible scholars tell us that 300 references, and 61 specific
prophecies of the Messiah were fulfilled by Christ Jesus.
1. In The Beginning
At the beginning of known history we
are told that the God-Head created everything in six days. We are
also told that all that God created was good. There was no death, no
pain, no sorrow, God even came down and walked with Adam and Eve in
the garden.
All was paradise, and then the fall
occurred. Adam and Eve were tempted by the Satan and gave into the
temptation by eating the forbidden fruit and suddenly all that was
good, was not. By eating the forbidden fruit sin entered the world.
With sin came pain, death, sorrow, and separation from God. And with
sin separating God from man the need for a Messiah, a redeemer arose.
We see the first mention of this redeemer in Genesis 3:15 ~
15 And I
will put enmity
between
you and the woman,
and
between your offspring and hers;
he will
crush your head,
and you
will strike his heel."
Also we are told here that He will be
born of a woman.
2. The Patriarchs
We fast forward a bit until we
come to Abram who is from the line of Shem and first of the
patriarchs. When Abram was 75 the Lord came to him:
1 The
LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and
your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
2 "I
will make you into a great nation
and I
will bless you,
I will
make your name great,
and you
will be a blessing.
3 I will
bless those who bless you,
and
whoever curses you I will curse;
and all
peoples on earth
will be
blessed through you."
4 So
Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram
was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. 5 He took his
wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated
and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the
land of Canaan, and they arrived there. (Genesis 12:1-4.)
Notice verse 3, it is in this verse
that we see God promising a redeemer from the lineage of Abram. There
is just one problem Abram and Sari don't have any children but that
would change. In Genesis 22:18 we read "In
your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you
have obeyed My voice." Abraham (Abram) and Sarah's
(Sari) would go on and have one son together. Isaac was that son and
it would be through his blood line that the Messiah would come.
Isaac and his wife Rebekah had two
sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau sold his birthright to Jacob, who later
with his mother's help tricked Esau out of his blessing as first
born. So now we leave Esau and follow Jacob's line. In that line
through two wives and various handmaidens Jacob would have twelve
sons. Probably the most famous of whom is Joseph, but it isn't his
line we are concerned with but that of his older brother Judah's.
"Judah,
your brothers shall praise you; Your hand shall be on the neck of
your enemies; Your father's sons shall bow down to you... The scepter
will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his
feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the
nations is his. Here in Genesis 49:8;10 we see that from
the line of Judah will come the royal tribe, the tribe from which
Messiah would come. The scepter will not depart from Judah, until it
comes to whom it belongs, v. 10. Jacob prophesied, that
the scepter holder would come from the tribe of Judah. This prophecy
was eventually fulfilled by King David, and his decedents.
And so the dying Jacob, saw at a time
in the distant future, of the Messiah's day, and it comforted him and
offered him hope on his death-bed. And so the days of the patriarchs
ended.
3. After Egypt
Moses the man who under the guidance of
the great “I Am” would lead the children of Israel out of Egypt
after 430 years of captivity. But even as great as Moses was the
Messiah would not come from his line, for he was from the line of
Levi; the priestly line. His succor Joshua while the great leader
under whom the conquest for the promised land was carried out was not
of the Messianic line either. Joshua was from the line of Ephraim.
After Joshua came the time of the
Judges and this marked the end of another chapter for the Israelite's.
Next would come the time of the kings.
4. The Rise and Fall of
the Kings
Saul is the first man to be crowned
king of Israel, yet he was not from the tribe of Judah; but the tribe
of Benjamin. Now Saul became full of himself and did not follow God
as he should, so God told Samuel to go and anoint a new king. To find
this new king Samuel was sent to Bethlehem home to Jesse who was from
the tribe of Judah. After looking over all of Jesse's sons God told
Samuel to anoint the youngest one, David as the new king of Israel.
So
he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with beautiful eyes and
a handsome appearance. And the LORD said, "Arise, anoint him;
for this is he." Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed
him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came
mightily upon David from that day forward. And Samuel arose and went
to Ramah(raw-maw'). (1
Samuel 16:12-13).
David eventually settled in as king and
even with all his short comings is called a
man after God's own heart in 1 Samuel 13:14.
In 2 Samuel 7:12-16 we catch another
glimpse of our redeemer. "When your
days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up
your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will
establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will
establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to
him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will
correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men,
but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away
from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your
kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be
established forever.”
I
believe that in part this passage talks about David's son Solomon,
but Solomon's kingdom did not endure before God, and it certainly
would not be established forever. Man is a finite creature and so are
his kingdoms. Only God's kingdom, Christ Jesus' kingdom endures
forever.
Israel would eventually split into two kingdoms, the
northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. The
northern kingdom would fall to Assyrian Empire in 722 BC
and
the southern kingdom would finally fall to the neo-Babylonians in 586
BC.
But all hope was not lost as a series of prophets would remind the
people of both kingdoms that there was a Saviour, a Messiah coming.
There
have been many who claimed to be the Messiah throughout history. Here
are just a few of those who have been noted.
- Jesus of Nazareth (c. 4 BC – 30/33 AD), leader of a Jewish sect who was crucified by the Romans for sedition and is believed by Christians to have been resurrected. Jews who believed him to be the Messiah were originally called Nazarenes and later they were known as Jewish Christians (the first Christians). Muslims and Christians(including Messianic Jews) believe him to be the Messiah.
- Simon bar Kokhba (died c. 135), founded a short-lived Jewish state before being defeated in the Second Jewish-Roman War.
- Moses of Crete, who in about 440–470 persuaded the Jews of Crete to walk into the sea, as Moses had done, to return to Israel. The results were disastrous and he soon disappeared.
- David Reubeni (1490–1541?) and Solomon Molcho (1500–1532), messianic adventurers who traveled in Portugal, Italy and Turkey; Molcho, who was a baptized Catholic, was tried by the Inquisition, convicted of apostasy and burned at the stake.
- Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676), an Ottoman Jew who claimed to be the Messiah, but then converted to Islam; still has followers today in the Dönmeh.
- Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), seventh rebbe of Chabad Lubavitch, claimed to be the Messiah by his followers.
All but one of these seem to be lacking
when looking at the prophecies pertaining to the life and death of
the Messiah, so how do they stack up to the prophecies surrounding
the birth of the Messiah.
5.
The Age of the Prophets
Up until now we have had a smattering
of prophecies about the coming Messiah. Just a glimpse here and a
glimpse there. But that was all about to change. When we get into the
section of the Old Testament know as the Prophets the prophecies
about the Messiah are numerous. The prophecies we are looking at
about the Messiah were written by men from different times and places
between about 500 and 1,000 years before Christ Jesus was born. This
means there was no opportunity for collusion among them.
So what were some of the prophecies
concerning the Messiah. I am going to show you some of these
prophecies this morning and as I do think about what you know about
the birth of Christ Jesus.
The prophet Isaiah states in Isaiah
7:14 ~ "Therefore the Lord Himself
will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a
son, and she will call His name Immanuel.”
We have already seen Jacob's prophecy
about the Messiah being from the tribe Judah, now listen to what the
prophet Micah had to say, “But as for
you, Bethlehem Ephrathah (ef-rawth'), Too little to be among the
clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in
Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of
eternity." (Micah 5:2). In this prophecy we are also
shown where the Messiah will be born.
As we were looking at the kings we saw
in 2 Samuel 7:12-16 that the Messiah would come from the line of King
David. In the Prophets, Jeremiah in 23:5 states, “Behold,
the days are coming," declares the LORD, When I will raise up
for David a righteous Branch; And He will reign as king and act
wisely And do justice and righteousness in the land.” This
prophecy by Jeremiah was made in 600 B.C.
And
the prophet Isaiah in 11:1-5 told us that the Messiah would come from
the family of Jesse ~ Then
a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his
roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, The
spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and
strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. And He
will delight in the fear of the LORD, And He will not judge by what
His eyes see, Nor make a decision by what His ears hear; But with
righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for
the afflicted of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod
of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the
wicked. Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, And
faithfulness the belt about His waist.
On
a sad note Jeremiah also prophesied about the killing of the children
in Bethlehem in Jeremiah 31:15, Thus
says the LORD, "A voice is heard in Ramah, Lamentation and
bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; She refuses to be
comforted for her children, Because they are no more."
And
then all was silent after the prophet Malachi. For over 400 years the
children of Israel watched and waited and nothing. And then came the
birth of John to Zechariah and Elizabeth the forerunner foretold in
Malachi 3:1, some 400 years earlier, "Behold,
I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me.
And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and
the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is
coming," says the LORD of hosts.” The
long silence had been broken. Everything was about to change!
The
Old Testament pointed to the birth of the Messiah, the one who would
come to save us all from our sins and who would restore the kingdom
of God. When you look at the prophecies you can see that there is
only one who can be the true Messiah and that is Christ Jesus. And so
this morning you have a decision to make. Will you ask Christ Jesus
to come into your life and become your Lord and Saviour? Or will you
turn Him away again?
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